Last November, low- and middle-income countries left COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, tired and disappointed. They had fought into the early hours of the morning, all the way through the weekend, to secure more public financing from high-income countries. Ultimately, they lost, leaving with a measly promise of $300 billion annually, and an “I owe you” known as the Baku-to-Belém road map that promised discussions on how to stretch that to $1.3 trillion leveraging finance from “all actors,” including private.
This week in Bonn, Germany — during the midway meetings to COP 30 in Brazil — those same nations showed that they are not done fighting for public finance. But high-income countries are making it clear that they consider the book on this closed.
Bonn began with a battle over whether to put Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement on the summit’s official agenda, which mandates the provision of finance from developed to developing countries. Ultimately, the article was not included, and developing countries agreed to a footnote saying that they would continue “informal consultations” on it as the Bonn conference continues.